Prosecutor seeks to strip ranking of infamous 1980 coup planner Kenan Evren

Duvar English

Turkey's Supreme Court prosecutor's office has sought to strip the rank of General Kenan Evren, the former commander of the Turkish Armed Forces who was known as the chief leader behind the 1980 military coup. 

Prosecutors are also seeking to strip the rank of former Commander of Air Forces Tahsin Şahinkaya over his role in the coup, as well as to seize the assets of Evren and Şahinkaya, both of whom passed away in 2015. 

Known as by far the bloodiest and most traumatic coup out of the four that have been staged in Turkey between 1960 and 1997, more than half a million people were imprisoned and tortured while behind bars, while hundreds died in jail and 50 people, including a 17-year-old, were sentenced to death. 

Evren later become known as one of the most reviled figures in the history of the modern Turkish republic, and not a single politician from any of Turkey's active political parties attended his 2015 funeral. 

The 1980 coup was instrumental in crushing the country's left and civil society, imposing the Turksh-Islamic synthesis to combat to radical leftist ideologies, and set the stage for the neoliberalism of the Turkish economy under the leadership of Turgut Özal, an economist who later later become president prime minister during the 1980's and 1990's. 

The coup that ended years of civil disorder and violent conflicts between right-wing and left-wing groups, but his rule unleashed a wave of arrests, torture and extrajudicial killings. Political parties were shut down and Evren went on to serve for seven years as president from 1982.

The coup left Turkey with a constitution drafted by generals and viewed by many to this day as a brake on democratic development in the nation.

Evren was sentenced to life in prison in 2014 for leading the 1980 coup, but sickness spared him from serving time behind bars before he died a year later.